There is something that needs to be said in the beginning. There have been singular voices who said it's too long and too intensive in these afternoon sessions. I want to declare that there are lots of people who do not feel it like this. And I'm one of those. And always gain a wonderful firework that's of which we will be nourished for a long time.

[01:04]

All right. So we thank you. Thank you. The United States is a soccer game tonight. Oh, good. Really? Made out of some sort of nationalistic obligation, I should say. And who are they playing? Africa. Africa. Yeah, I don't know. Continent. I prefer chanting. Chanting for a continent. But it's two continents at once, right? Yes. And he wants me to stop now. Mary Ann was also indicating that I want to say something.

[02:25]

Because I didn't know what he was intending to say. To make sure that the strong protest comes through that we are in love with your teaching. Now I'm embarrassed. It must be said sometimes. Oh, very much so. That's a good time to stop now. Yeah. I should stop while I'm ahead. Well, I'm in love with practicing with you, so... Okay. Somebody else has something. I'm all downhill from now on. Yes. I'd like to share a poem with you, not only because this morning you said the poetry has only been at the periphery.

[03:40]

It's a poem that I... I wasn't able, I haven't written myself, but it's been written with this deep longing at the inner search or request. And I heard this poem first when I bought my first MP3. And it was from the seminar 2004, Zen and Poetry. With Norman Fisher? With Norman Fisher, yes. And Roschi introduced it to us, so you and me, a year later.

[05:08]

And I also heard it in English for the first time. That's why I want to read it in English first. And Roshi had introduced this poem to you and a year later also to me. And I first heard it in English. That's why I'd like to read it in English first. In this poem there are different personal pronouns, an I that could not occur without a you. And in this poetry there are no pronouns, I guess. And there is an I which could not exist without a U. And the I is occluded when you say U. And in the last sentence there is a we. I wasn't able to look at it.

[06:11]

I wrote the poem, but I think the first name is Denise or something, but you can help me with it. Denise Webbertov. Yes. And it's called The Marriage. Do you want to read it now, or do you want to read it now? You can read it now. Okay. It's called the marriage. And Roshi asked back then, it could also be called the sangha. And Roshi also said at that time it could also be called the sangha. Not in English, but... You have my attention. It is a tenderness beyond what I may say. And I have your constancy to something beyond myself.

[07:14]

The force of your commitment charges us. We live in a sweep of it, taking courage from one the other. Du hast meine Aufmerksamkeit gleich eine Zärtlichkeit, die weit über das hinausgeht, was ich vielleicht sage. Und ich habe deine Beständigkeit für etwas jenseits meiner selbst. Die Kraft deiner Zusage nährt uns beide. Uns gegenseitig ermutigend, schöpfen wir es in der Gänze seiner Möglichkeiten auf. In our group we talked about I and we and about that which we will take on.

[08:27]

First we thought this question was a little superficial. Or too simple. Somehow I don't remember how the discussion started. and we came to the subject to individualize yourself with all the new media that exists and with the goal of becoming more and more independent and then we noticed that actually the opposite is happening So that you're still creating a network, you're doing it differently but you're in a kind of a

[09:51]

What is network in English? Network. Someone gave an example of his daughter who works very much with these tools, who knows people all over the world as a 14-year-old. And somebody made an example of a person's own daughter who's about 15 years old and knows people all over the planet, all continents. She's just 15 years old. And they really share rather personal things with each other. And then the question arose, where is the limit of such type of merge or network? Where is the end to such a relationship? but sometimes with a little concern and on the other hand also with a certain admiration.

[11:06]

Because we are observing this sort of kind of... Worry. ...worry, but on the other hand we sort of admire it at the same time. But an important element that we then discovered that does not take place is the physical contact. And we know this is an important aspect that does not exist as a physical aspect. And we all have this longing or need to search for this physical contact here. And we agreed that this is what we'd like to take along with us is the memory of this physical contact or the feel of this physical... Face-to-face presence. Presence, yes. and also the question of what are our tools, or what do we take with us, what helps us when we go home, or in our other world, so to speak, that we continue to develop this experience, or I should say teaching, or knowledge further, further development, where we live.

[12:46]

So, Then there's the question, what aids do we have? What are we taking into our so-called other world that helps us to further develop this teaching? He said really nicely, it was in four words. And another aspect is the forgetting. It's not only that which we remember and can take back, but the other thing is what actually got lost. And then we had more discussions in that direction.

[13:47]

In our group, someone said that we don't really take anything. Someone in our group said it's not really that we take something. In that moment, I didn't quite get it. But now it's clear to me that I'm full of stuff. I haven't taken anything, but I've been full of stuff. It's not that I've been stuffed. I've been stuffed full of things. I'm not taking anything. I'm stuffed to the brim. Nicely stuffed. Dear lawyer... I really feel satiated. Thank you. I hope you don't have indigestion. Carolina?

[15:14]

I love being in the same group as David, and I continue thinking about forgetting. Because also the word incubate. I don't think much is forgotten. It's... For me it feels like there are seeds that lie on the ground for years and suddenly they start sprouting. Then they are not exactly the same anymore as what they were when they were planted. And some might need this incubation period.

[16:26]

And some might need this incubation period. [...] And this is so fascinating to me because it's like song words. The son hears the father sing the particular song in his first year, and does not sing for a whole year. And then he sort of incubates it. After a year, not ever singing, he can sing the whole thing. Great. Yeah.

[17:26]

Yes. Yes. The question was how much I and we take along from here. I think that we'll find its expression in how we are with all the people and with all we meet, how we will interact. Simply egotism and competition will be in the foreground. Or more compassion and loving kindness. One aspect also came up in our group, namely because for many it is always about how you can share with people what took place here this week.

[18:31]

And then something was mentioned in our group that is how can you talk to other people about what happened here this week. And so my experience is that people who do love practice verbally cannot explain what's in them. But as described before, it can be shown in the manner in which you interact with somebody else. What we talked about, when we talked about the question, it was, are you going to bring the I or the we home with you? And it seems to have morphed into, what are you going to bring home with you? Is that right? So it's not just, are you going to use the I or we?

[19:37]

No, we talked about, the question was, what do you take home, the I or the we? Okay. Okay. For me this is a unique opportunity to practice the we Then it's about sensitivity in a perception which I can perceive more finely when I'm together with everyone here. And then through your words, Roshi, I have words from my own experiences.

[20:56]

And this is the shape of the CD I can take home. Each time I listen to it I hear something else in this process. A verbalized experience for expression of my experience continues. And this is the we I'm taking along from here and this is sometimes the resonance I can feel with other people.

[22:02]

Yeah, something that I haven't forgotten. Hab dich nicht vergessen. Yeah, I know. I haven't forgotten. Ich hab dich nicht vergessen. A number of senior people in our Sangha have been asking me to let our seminars be filmed. Eine Reihe... They asked you or they just said they would. And the idea took... got some impetus last year when we looked at films of Sukhiroshi. And I guess they saw Tsukiroshi was dead in nice pictures, and they thought, geez, he might die.

[23:35]

Let's get some pictures. So I was told that somebody will pay for a cameraman to come down here and start filming five or six or seven or eight lectures. I don't know. It just seems funny to me if there was a cameraman in here. Can we do the camera without the man? What camera?

[24:35]

Well, let's not get into too big a discussion. We'll be forever. I suggested we could maybe have just a couple of stationary cameras and then somebody could edit it. But they say that's not... The professional film people say that's nonsense. I also suggested that you could set up two stationary cameras and then the film people would say that's complete nonsense. And someone else wants to, is in the process of, behind my back by the way, raising the money to do a documentary. So I just mentioned it.

[25:39]

Years ago, a friend, a person who became a friend of mine, Ron Ayer. In the 70s, wanted to do a BBC Time Life program. Believe it or not, with a long search, with a series, and I was going to be one episode short. In those days I said, Well, you have to pretend we're birds and your films and birds fly away as soon as we see a camera. So I've always said no to these things over the years. So don't tell me now what you think. It just does all occur just four or five days, just before the seminar, I heard about the plan.

[26:50]

Please. Just a little short remark that my eye will... go back to belonging to the we. I'm the bad one. Afternoon events, not the morning, but the afternoon are too long. And I just want to ask you to think of the third position. I just ask you to remember the third position. Thank you. And, and. What is the third position?

[27:51]

And, and. Oh, of the petrolemic. And, and. All right. Thank you. I will. Remember the Tetralemma. What else? Yes, Peter? In David's group, we also started to talk about Shikantaza. In David's group we also started speaking about shimkatarasa. Discussion ended vehemently with sight of cake, appearance of the cake. That can end any discussion. I just mentioned that because the discussion was very short, but one very central question arose.

[28:59]

the question of the relationship between uncorrected mind and intervention into mind. My question would be, is the maintenance of a kind of background noise Is the constant maintenance of the background mind maintaining? Is that keeping attention of breathing? Letting emerging or letting arising things just move on? Is that in contradiction to uncorrecting mind or is that okay?

[30:15]

Okay. Okay? Yes or no? Something in our discussion came up for me around this feeling of forgetting the self. And somehow it Forgetting the self, it's about forgetting certain relationships that I have historically and habitually to the self. And forgetting the self is forgetting about... Historically and habitually. No, I'm just referring you straight into a bit of text. Nobody noticed. I mean, is California English that hard to learn?

[31:23]

With the experience I have in forgetting a self that I have through my habit and history created, it's not necessarily that it goes away. that aspect of my experience may still be functioning. But there's a facet of my experience or a room in my experience to be created through being with other people, not just my habits. So I have I have a feeling of we in this experience because I'm being created through the we.

[32:40]

But there's not necessarily just a distinct I that's being created. The times like this, being together, creates a different kind of we for each of us. So it's a kind of both and, neither or. And the impetus for me is to respect both aspects. And respect the practice that makes it possible. Well I'm happy to be interrupted, but let me say something.

[33:52]

On the last day, I don't want to go on too long, despite my supporters over here for a length of time. Because, you know, if I go on too long, it creates a lot of loose ends, and then I have to deal with them tomorrow. We're leaving tomorrow. But I wanted to continue this sense of exploring the spectrum of I and we. Because I have too often recently spoken about a tea bowl, I decided not to bring the tea bowl, but just to visualize the tea bowl.

[35:16]

I mean, a tea bowl is an iconic representation of Japanese culture. Let's call it Japanese yogic culture. Now, probably for the plotter, he or she doesn't think I'm making an icon necessarily. They just make something that's satisfying to them. within a certain traditional format, which really came initially from Korean craft pottery. Good. I guess so.

[36:35]

It's like kind of ordinary pottery. Ordinary pottery of Hamburg. All of it's handwork. So a particular tea bowl. you can see the material out of which it was made. The product allows that to be visible. And it's clear how it was made as well as what it's made from. In a simple sense, this is the difference between seeing it as an entity and seeing it as an activity. Now, this is... In other words, what I'm trying to say here is if a culture has a certain emphasis on a spectrum from entity to activity, if the emphasis tends to be on activity, not entity,

[38:08]

over centuries, this will get more and more emphasized. And so we can see it in the iconic representations of a yogic culture. Yeah, in a very developed form. But I think we can, if we can shift, have a feeling of worldview shift, recognize that we can make this shift ourselves. Okay. I don't know if I can say what I'm trying to say, but I'll keep trying.

[39:28]

Okay, so we can, if we tend to notice that things are an activity, As I've said several times probably, if that's held as a view, it will begin influencing what we do. Now that we're in a historical situation, one is always in a historical situation, right? How could you not be? But in our present historical situation, which we are participating in, there's the opportunity for a change built into our historical situation. In other words, whatever is happening in our culture is presenting an opportunity for change.

[40:42]

So again, this is not just a simple, oh, we went to India or we went to Japan or someplace. Our culture has brought us to the point where if we do go to India or Japan or practice Buddhism, something happens, which it wouldn't maybe have 50 years ago. So we're experiencing an opening in our own culture. And we're responding by being open to yogic Asian culture. And some people are going to respond to that opening in different ways.

[42:06]

And we too can respond in some way in addition to practicing Buddhism. Okay, so what I'm interested in is what happens when you make a shift. And what baggage comes along with the shift. Now, it was one of the things that I saw in the 60s. Is... Lots of, in the United States, and particularly California area, lots of communes get started.

[43:07]

In the USA, and especially in California, many communities started to exist. And somebody even wrote a book about the San Francisco Zen Center, which at least for a while said it was the most successful commune in the United States. Now, what was interesting to me is that many of the so-called communes were looking at Buddhism as how to be communal. But in Asia, Buddhism is how to be individual, not how to be communal. So I found this very strange. You think this is about communalism and it's actually about individualism, but at least in Asia it's about individualism.

[44:13]

But in the spectrum of, let's call it a group or communal culture, The emphasis was so much on communal culture that the individualism in Buddhism was lost. So in a communal, let's call it a communal culture in Asia... What is individualism? And in our individualistic culture, what is communalism?

[45:15]

Okay, now I cannot satisfy any of these questions. Ich kann keine dieser Fragen irgendwie befriedigen. I'm living the questions as best I can. Ich lebe diese Fragen so gut wie ich kann. But I can't resolve them for us or even for me. Aber ich kann sie nicht lösen, weder für uns noch für mich. Except for living them and see what happens. I feel a big responsibility of messing around with world views. Maybe we share it like in Hermann Hesse's novel.

[46:20]

Maybe we share the... Something written over the door. But where are all ye who enter here? Your world views are in danger. Okay, well, so we have the tea bowl. And you can see how it's made. And what it's made from. And often the potter will leave his individualism on it because you can see where his tongue was or hand was. Okay, so it's again, now, it's use.

[47:28]

Yeah, now the, a tea bowl typically has three or four intentional intentional, attentional points. Has three or four attentional points. Three or four visited, one of them has always visited twice. So you have the front. And then the front is made so you probably wouldn't want to drink from it. And then you turn it nearly a quarter turn. And that's where you expect it to drink from. So that's the second point.

[48:50]

And the third is, either what you see when you tip the bowl, and then the fourth would be the bottom, or just what you see when you finish the tip. Either or what? Some bowls have, when you come to the second, it's not important. It's an activity. So the design conceptually was three or four attentional points. This clearly not only emphasized, conceives of it as an activity, how it was made, etc., Das zeigt nicht nur ganz klar darauf hin, wie das als Aktivität, als Handlung vorgesehen war.

[49:53]

It's expected to be used as an activity. Sondern man erwartet auch davon, sie als Aktivität zu gebrauchen. Okay. And so you turn it and it's an activity. Okay. But you always return it back to where you started. So that point is used twice. Okay. So, you know, it's like this is the big front, that's the second front, that can be the third front, and that's the fourth front. Okay. Now, some tea bowls don't do that. But when they don't do it, they're playing with you to wonder why they didn't do it.

[51:16]

So even when they don't do it, they're doing it. And some people, you have to wonder, where the heck is the front? All right. So what is it that when you, this activity of the bowl? In other words, this bell is not a bell until you ring it. What do you call this? Well, if you called it bell, you're wrong. You'd have to ring it. Now, you can take hope that if they do that kind of stuff in Zen koans, that most of the people in the Zen teacher's audience would still call it a bell and be wrong.

[52:33]

So, on the spectrum of entity to activity, most of the Zen teacher's audience are still on the entity side. Not as far as us, but... Although this is a pretty... entity is made of metal, it's pretty solid, right? Pretty stable. There's still molecules all over my hand, my hands. There are still molecules everywhere and my hand smells like metal.

[53:58]

Cheap utensils in a fast food market and fast food place in middle America. That's plastic. It's sometimes plastic. That's the cheap fast food places in middle America. So it's an activity. It's an activity. And conceived of an activity. When you see things in an activity, you make them differently. After a while, you start making them differently. The maker of the object or the user? The maker makes them different. And the user, of course, influences the activity too. Suzuki Roshi had a potter friend that he gave his

[55:10]

He gave the potter his potting name, his name as potter. And when I was with Tsukiyoshi, we visited this potter. He gave the potter's son his potter's name, who was going to continue the potting lineage. In this moment or in general? Well, when I was there, his son, who was going to continue his father's lineage, asked Sukhiroshi to also give him a pranayama. Another one? Yeah, not his father's name, a new one. Okay. So, while I was at Sukhiroshi, his friend came to Sukhiroshi and asked him if he could also give his son a pranayama, because he wanted to pass on this pranayama to his son. He developed a particular kind of red glaze based on mineral deposits in the mountain behind his potting kiln.

[56:36]

He developed a very special red glaze which consists of minerals on the mountain behind his potting kiln. And he, when I was with him, as a special thing as Sukerushi's disciple, the potter gave me one of his favorite pieces, which had been a mistake in the kiln. That's the reddish face we have. It's darker on one side than the other. So this man gave me a tea bowl.

[57:49]

And it was clear to me that this man did not practice the tea ceremony. But it was a summer tea bowl and quite nice. I use it now and then. So I brought it and showed it to Nakamura Sensei. One of my teachers and lived with us for many years, 20 years. I remember Nakamura Sensei. And she was a teacher among lots of things. She was a great person. she took one look at the tea bowl I said it was given to me she took one look at it and said he doesn't drink tea I mean she knew instantly that he was a potter but not a potter who would say

[58:50]

Okay, so here's this tea bowl and you return it to the point you start. And that's this whole thing of you shape you shape convergence. You receive and release. And it's part of the four teachings, the four dhammas. The four marks. And, okay, but what is the size of the teeple? What is the size of a teabowl?

[60:09]

Summer teabowls and winter teabowls are always this size. Why? Because you disappear into the teabowl. You drink, and you drink, and you always, you don't just drink like this, you drink like this, and there's a feeling of disappearing spiritually into, yeah, something like this. So built into this activity of the tea bowl, this iconic object, you always return to zero. Which is a kind of renewal.

[61:17]

And also, everything disappears. Yeah. Now, I don't want to say more about this than that. But built into the culture emphasizing activity, The activity has to have a beginning and an end, or otherwise you're lost. You have to give shape to what's happening. How do you get access to the mind? To inner and outer wholeness.

[62:18]

to a kind of musical notation. Because if it's just endless activity, how do you shape it so you have access to your experience and to the mind experiencing it? How do you have access to your experience? and to the mind, which is the basis of the experience. So, in the tea bowl, you can see as an example, I'm not exaggerating the example, you always return to the beginning. Yeah, and you develop the habit of returning to the beginning. And then disappearing, really releasing or disappearing. So the practice of disappearance is part of the practice of appearance. Teil der Praxis des Auflösens und Verschwindens ist auch dieses Auftauchen.

[63:58]

And this is what I'm suggesting without trying to make it too clear, that on the spectrum of we, the I is hidden in things like the individualism, hidden in something like the renewal of returning to zero and the disappearance. Okay. In the spectrum of an emphasis on we, there's an I hidden in the we. This is also like, how do you express, Dogen says, the entire universe is the true human body. You can look at this as an equation. X equals what? So the entire universe equals the true human body. The true human body equals the universe. So we're not just defining the body in terms of this immense universe.

[65:22]

We're also defining the universe in terms of this specific body. This is a different experience of allness or oneness than externalizing the oneness into some kind of creation of the world or something. This is another experience that is one or all as an externalized experience of the universe. It's different than an externalized experience of the universe. As, you know, perhaps the universe who was created or something like that. So in this sense the universe does not have a creator. Just now you're defining the universe as your body.

[66:25]

If we think of the universe as an entity, then we think it has to have a beginning. Entities need a beginning. If you think of it as an ongoing activity, you have a choice. Does it have a beginning or does it not have a beginning? That's the only two choices we can comprehend. Yoga culture has chosen, well, who knows which, but the Big Bang, it's harder to understand than God. God is easy to understand. You just called our Father in heaven. That would be my name. But you can't say our big bang in heaven, it looked like my mother.

[67:44]

I don't know. There's no way to relate to the damn big bang. Das ist natürlich unmöglich zu sagen. Der große Knall im Himmel, du bist meine Mutter. Das wie meine Mutter. It's also funny, a big bang. Yeah, the big money, the big money, yeah. In a culture which has chosen, it's endless. In a culture which has chosen, it's endless. We don't say the world was created.

[68:50]

We say the world and our body are equal. Then we explore that in our experience. And then we try to explore that in our experience. I'm going to stop in a moment. In the Noh play, Noh Theater, another iconic example, the student of Noh, is acting, he's representing, traditionally it's all males.

[69:54]

And so, but males have to play old men and old women. And you're told, do not imitate the voice of an old woman or an old man. The teacher says, you can only have your own voice, so just have your own voice. Have the mentality of an old woman. Use your voice. Now that's a different concept than individuality. You have your own voice, but you take on the mentality of an old woman, old man. So in this flow of activity if you take it on if you shift yourself into this world view sometimes it will gradually

[71:01]

influence what you do. And such things as these koans will be much clearer to you. Because really you kind of to understand the koans you have to kind of bring the mind that already knows to the koan. Because to understand a koan you have to The more you know what they must be talking about, then it's clearer when they try to make the activities look like they could be all kinds of things. So if you think you know it, you don't, right?

[72:24]

No. You come from a different place. You come from knowing what must be the case because your own experience tells you they must be talking about such and such. Like when it says unborn and undying, I know what they must be talking about. So I'm not fooled by the words. Like if I said to you now, practice with... not converging. But now you know what I'm talking about. Or not originating. Now you know the practice of non-originating is in the context of originating. If you don't know the practice of originating, you can't understand why the koan says not originating.

[73:36]

When they mean the opposite. So the musical notation of the multiple of Sangha. The musical notation of my hearing the singing of the Maharishi, the punctuation of his breath, notation of his breath, In the Noh plays, again, they say, the rhythm of the chanting should be the dripping of water from the eaves of the roof.

[74:50]

Dripping of the rain from the eaves of the roof. The chanting. Intervals of the chanting. And Ivan Illich claims, and he's both said this to me, and he's written it too, I believe. He can usually tell when a book is written on a computer. Because the rhythm of coming to the meaning is gone because snippets, when you cut things with scissors, the little pieces of meaning are joined. Yeah, a lot of meanings at the same level are stuck together.

[76:04]

That's not like feeling the rain dripping from the eaves. He wants to feel in a text how the text came out of the body or the pen or something like that. And that's partly what we're talking about here in, you know, like you said, this face-to-face context. So part of the musical notation of this unfolding mutual body, this unfolding mutual we, That's a four Brahma Viharas I mentioned this morning.

[77:30]

Assume an implicit we. Assume an implicit we. If you feel unlimited friendliness or loving kindness, if that's the body you put on when you come out of your room, the very act of doing that radiates it into other bodies and other people. That's the concept of these teachings.

[78:31]

That they radiate because all us, we are also simultaneously we's and not just ours. So now what we're talking about is that an entire group of people can hold a yoga posture. The hatha yoga postures. which actually were developed by British people in India about 200 years ago.

[79:37]

There's certainly a tradition of yoga, but the particular positions came mostly from British, you know, and they developed the postures. Most of the main postures were developed by an influence of Westerners. This has been going on a long time. So we have the physical postures of yoga, western influenced, We have the mental postures of yoga, Buddhist influenced. And we also have kind of group yogic postures. To share common vows is to share yogic postures, mental.

[80:58]

So as I said, after 9-11 in New York, Everyone in the city had a similar mental posture. If we understand that these mental postures are a fact and possible, we can start wondering in new ways, how we influence our society. So if there's a constant flow of interdependence, which is a kind of music shared by everyone, or interfered with, you can begin to sing these tunes.

[82:24]

So the musical notation of interdependence So the musical notation of interdependence or inter-emergence. So you can sing along with it. You have to turn it into a kind of notation. And the yoga of viewing things as activities is to always bring in the zero and the disappearance.

[83:26]

It's a kind of grammar or musical notation. which allows you to sensorially and cognitively relate to the flow, the shared flow of interdependence. Okay. I was going to read to you from this, but I won't. This is Yuan Wu, who is the compiler of the Gluclif records. Who's referred to in this koan as Fuguo.

[84:27]

F-U-G-U-O is Yuan Wu. Mm-hmm. I'll just read a couple of things that fit with the koan. Reining in your thoughts. Not identifying with your thoughts. Concentrate your awareness. It means establish a mental posture. A mental posture in which you no longer set up before and after. You'll experience the unborn.

[85:35]

Whether you intend it or not. The ordinary and the sagely. The ordinary and the enlightened by. by one such embracing all space with no direction or location. Okay, I just wanted you to see that it's all at one place. Much of this is all of one piece. And we're entering it little by little. What's interesting is that when you enter it little by little,

[86:40]

Because the parts are part of a large piece of fabric sometimes from one little part the whole thing unrolls. I was going to be shorter, and I wasn't. Thank you very much.

[87:24]

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